11.—(1) A council may erect at or near each end, corner or entrance of any street in its district a nameplate showing the name of the street; and a nameplate erected under this paragraph—
(a)shall express the name of the street in English; and
(b)may express that name in any other language.
(2) A council may, immediately adjacent to a nameplate erected under paragraph (1) which expresses the name of a street in English only, erect a second nameplate expressing the name of the street in a language other than English.
(3) Neither this Article nor anything done by a council thereunder authorises or requires the use of the name of a street expressed in a language other than English as, or as part of—
(a)the address of any person; or
(b)the description of any land;
for the purposes of any statutory provision.
(4) In deciding whether and, if so, how to exercise its powers under paragraph (1)(b) or (2) in relation to any street, a council shall have regard to any views on the matter expressed by the occupiers of premises in that street.
(5) Any person who—
(a)obscures, pulls down or defaces any nameplate erected under paragraph (1) or (2);
(b)erects in any street any nameplate showing as the name of the street a name different from that in any nameplate erected in the street under paragraph (1) or (2); or
(c)erects in any street any nameplate purporting to show the name of the street, without the authorisation of the council for the district in which the street is situated,
shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 2 on the standard scale.
(6) Where a council has exercised its powers under paragraph (1) in relation to any street, the occupier of each house or other building in that street shall ensure that that house or building is at all times marked with such number as the council may approve for the purposes of this Article.
(7) Where a person fails to comply with paragraph (6) the council may serve on him a notice requiring him to comply with that paragraph within 7 days from the date of service of the notice.
(8) A person who fails to comply with a notice served on him under paragraph (7) shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 2 on the standard scale.
(9) Where a person fails to comply with a notice served on him under paragraph (7) in respect of any house or other building, the council may itself do anything which he has failed to do and may recover from that person summarily as a civil debt any expenses thereby reasonably incurred by it.
(10) In this Article—
“nameplate” includes any means of signifying a name in writing;
“street” includes any road, square, court, alley, passage or lane.
(11) The power of a council to erect a nameplate under paragraph (1) or (2) includes power—
(a)to erect it on any building or in such other manner as the council thinks fit; and
(b)to cause it to be erected by any person authorised in that behalf by the council.
(12) The following statutory provisions shall cease to have effect, namely—
(a)sections 64 and 65 of the Towns Improvement Clauses Act 1847(1);
(b)in section 38 of the Towns Improvement (Ireland) Act 1854(2) the words “naming the streets and numbering the houses and also so much thereof as relates to”;
(c)section 21 of the Public Health Acts Amendment Act 1907(3);
(d)section 19 of the Public Health and Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act (Northern Ireland) 1949(4); and
(e)so much of any local Act as relates to the naming of streets or the numbering of houses or buildings;
and any nameplate erected under any such provision shall be taken for the purposes of this Article to have been erected under paragraph (1).